Comptroller Liu Awards Management of $962 Million Bond Sale to Loop Capital Markets

Our Time Press Interviews  John Liu Comptroller, City of New York.

Comptroller Liu, can you tell us what’s different about this process and what has happened in the past?
Would you believe that the way the city sells bonds, billions  and billions of dollars each year is done by rotation, meaning a few of these really large companies, household names, actually take turns being the lead underwriter for these bond sales. There’s a fair amount of profit involved in being the lead underwriter. The problem with this method is that it’s the same people taking turns. I never understood why that had to be the case. So this particular bond deal, which ultimately turned out to be nearly $1 billion, was done by what is formally called a bakeoff, which is instead of having the same people take turns and just calling out the next one in line, we open it up to 14 companies who we have done business with and have a certain track record with the city and let them put proposals to be the lead underwriter.
It was competitive because all these proposals were evaluated on the merits and in the process the firm that gained the highest evaluation turned out to be a minority-owned firm, Loop Capital.  I’m very happy with the result of this particular bond offering.  First and foremost, it saved our taxpayers $82 million – essentially, this bond offering was a refinancing of previous bonds-secondly, it shows what can be achieved if we open up the process and let everybody get in on the level playing field. And in this case, we opened up the process and gave everybody a chance and a minority firm came out on top.
Is “rotation” a practice in other parts of the city’s contracting as well?
Well, first of all, would you believe they actually call this rotation
‘the Syndicate”.  You can’t make this stuff up.  Apart from that, I don’t know exactly where else in city contracting this concept of rotation occurs but I am going to bet that it is not only in bond underwriting that the city follows this kind of approach.
I really believe that the city’s purchasing power, i.e., the ability to put out billions of dollars worth of contracts every year, has the potential of not only creating jobs overall but to eliminate these historical disparities that exist within our city. Disparities in contracting the minority and women on firms as well as disparities in unemployment rates, where you have communities throughout the city who face much higher unemployment levels than the average for the city.
The question of minority grew out of the Civil Rights Movement, do you break out or can the Comptroller’s office do a break out of the minorities.  Are they African-American, Asian or Latino?
There is not enough of that done. We have a Local Law 129  that sets goals for the different types of business ownerships such are the Latino-owned, African-American, Asian or women-owned.   And they are broken down by type of business ex: construction or professional services, etc. These goals are laid out in  Local Law 129 but it has been nearly impossible to track the city’s progress with regard to compliance with Local Law 129. So this is an issue that is at the top of my priorities and in the absence of readily available information, we are conducting studies in my office to start to get our arms around this problem.
There was a time when Dinkins was mayor that the city had a very strong minority contracting process.  Does the Bloomberg Administration have a system for minority contracting?
Mayor Dinkins was one of the first, if not the absolute first, strong voice in this city to address this issue. The problem being the disparities in minorities getting contracts from the city.  Mayor Dinkins put in place a set of concepts and procedures that in intervening years have not been upheld. What my office is focused on is continuing the legacy that Mayor Dinkins began 20 years ago.
Can you elaborate on what this kind of contract procedure could potentially mean for the Kings County community?
When we open the doors to more minority contracting, we open up economic opportunities to everybody, especially residents in the New York City neighborhoods and let me add that minority-owned firms have a strong track record of hiring people in our neighborhood.
The Department of Education changed how they purchase books.  You mentioned the rotational aspect of bond buying, but the DOE put a high size limit to the companies that can sell books and African-American firms that had been selling to the city were lost.   What kind of rules exist and can you have any effect on those rules that take minority firms out of the process?
It is unclear where else in city contracting this rotational concept is in practice. None-the-less, it is  my goal to ensure that the way the city lets out contracts doesn’t discriminate in any way and, furthermore, that contracts are let out in a way that chips away at historical disparities.    I’m very excited about what’s happening here and this is only the beginning.

Racial Barriers to Highest Level Financial Transactions Shattered in Bond Sale Award

Work of Jeffries, Schneiderman Ends Prison-Based Gerrymandering

- Senate Majority Passes Historic Bill -
The New York legislative session that just concluded was historic for the African-American community, it was the culmination of a political infrastructure that began forming two decades ago and is at last bearing fruit.  Issues of importance to the African-American community that have been routinely put aside and ignored over the years, were enthusiastically dealt with by legislators elected to address these same concerns a generation ago but who now had power in both houses in Albany and in David Paterson, a governor who shared their frustration and goals.

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries

The latest accomplishment is the legislation ending the practice of inmate-based gerrymandering in New York State and ensuring that incarcerated persons will be counted as residents of their home communities when state and local legislative districts are redrawn in New York next year. 
Sponsored by Eric Schneiderman in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the Assembly, the new law is particularly meaningful for Kings County.  In an interview with Our Time Press right after the Senate had passed its bill, Assemblyman Jeffries said that Kings County is the largest county in the state with respect to the percentage of individuals who are incarcerated in New York.  “We send more individuals into the prison system than any county in New York,” resulting in having the political representation in Kings County being “far less than it otherwise should be.” 

State Senator Eric Schneiderman

Jeffries says that as a result of ending the practice of inmate-based gerrymandering in New York State, there will be increased representation in Brooklyn that would translate into additional political power and resources for the community.  He bases this on the combination of an expected increase in the population in Brooklyn, as well as the ability to now count incarcerated individuals as residents of their home communities in Kings County.   With this in place, “There is a likelihood that we may secure additional representation in either the Assembly or the Senate.”
What has happened in the past is that because of inmate-based gerrymandering, representation has gone to the rural communities where the prisons are located, giving them a disproportionate share of political power, relative to their actual population.
It is widely known that there are seven upstate Senate districts that would not meet the population requirements, if not for the incarcerated population individuals counted as residents of the district.  “The practice is unfair, undemocratic and undermines the fundamental principle of one person one vote.”
Making a Difference
This is just the latest in a series of bills that impact urban areas including reforming the Rocekfeller Drug Laws, ending the Stop-and-Frisk electronic database (but not the technique), reforming the juvenile justice system to provide alternatives to incarceration and holistic help for young people rather than prison care and rent-to-own legislation giving consumers protection from price gouging.   
 “We were sent to Albany to make a difference and given the change of power in the Senate with John Sampson at the helm and with other members like Velmanette Montgomery and Eric Adams in the majority, the Assembly now has a partner in dealing with issues that benefit communities of color.” 
The assemblyman says it also points to the significance of having someone like David Paterson in office, “who is sensitive to the concerns of African-American and Latino communities” and is willing to sign legislation that used to be ignored. 
“The other piece of legislation that Our Time Press has covered in a very comprehensive fashion is the MWBE strengthening that we were able to accomplish in the Assembly and the Senate and that Governor Paterson signed into law a few weeks ago.    So it’s been an extremely productive legislative session.  There is a lot of talk about what does not happen in Albany, and not enough of what does happen, particularly by African-American legislators trying to address issues of concern to the communities we represent.”
Looking forward to the next session, Assemblyman Jeffries is hopeful that the governor will take a look at the housing reform legislation that has passed in the Assembly and is working its way through the Senate to deal with the gentrification of communities of color, primarily in central Brooklyn and in Harlem. “The governor has indicated to us that he recognizes there is a need to reform the rent regulation laws and attempt to bring some balance between the relationship of landlords and tenants.” 
Jeffries noted that the housing market over the last decade has spiraled out of control and as a result landlords and developers have engaged in systematic harassment and abuse of rent-stabilized tenants, many of whom are people of color, in order to force them out of their apartments as part of the gentrification process. He says there is a series of rent regulation bills that have already passed the Assembly and “if passed and signed into law by Governor Paterson, will go a long way to dealing with the intense gentrification our communities have been dealing with.”
The assemblyman said that many of his fellow lawmakers saw a parallel between counting incarcerated individuals in the counties where the prisons are located and what  took place prior to the Civil War when African-American slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of artificially increasing power the rural South. “The South then went to congress with increased representation based on American slaves not voting and participating in the political process and used that increased political representation to undermine the very interests of those same African-Americans.” 
He says that this is what has been taking place in New York State “where rural upstate communities have artificially enhanced their political power largely on the backs of African-American and Latino incarcerated individuals only to then go to the state legislature and fight against the very criminal justice reforms that would benefit the African-American and Latino communities that are disproportionately represented in the correctional system.”
Speaking of the reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Jeffries said there was no justification for maintaining the “antiquated and draconian” laws and sentencing non-violent drug abusers to lengthy prison sentences “other than maintaining a prison industrial complex that enhanced the power of certain communities” that were dependent on the maintenance of a “vibrant” prison system. Reforms such as the Rockefeller Drug Laws took so long to enact because “until we took control of the Senate, individuals in rural upstate communities were committed to a system of maintaining the prison industrial complex with its school-to-prison pipeline. We have set out to break the back of the prison industrial complex. Whatever the morality of the individuals who have fought to maintain the prison industrial complex over the last several decades, they have succumbed to the countervailing force, from people of all colors in New York State, concluding that the right thing to do was to create a fairer, more equitable and more just correctional system.” 
Asked if there are other vestiges of slavery still in public policy, Jeffries responded: “I’ve often said that Jim Crow may be dead but his nieces and nephews are alive and well.  Slavery may have died with the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, but there are certainly vestiges of slavery that subjugate African-American communities by a loss of political power and the diminution of their ability to succeed economically.” 
If electing Barack Obama president was a marker for the advances gained in the Civil Rights Movement, then the New York state legislative session that just concluded demonstrates what was envisioned by the Black Power Movement in the seventies, the wielding of political power to authoritively advance the issues of a previously subjugated people.

View From Here: Jim Webb is Right – Diversity Programs Are Too Diverse

Virginia Senator Jim Webb has come under fire for his Wall Street Journal article, “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege”, where he argues that  “America still owes a debt to its black citizens, but government programs to help all ‘people of color’ are unfair. They should end.” 
We’re glad Jim Webb said it because he’s absolutely correct.  In a former career in the moving industry, we would see government contracts go to large companies owned by white Cubans who qualified as  “minority” contractors with economic resources far outdistancing their African-American competitors.   Sometimes you would go into a bid conference and see a list of eligible minorities and wonder, “What the hell is going on here?” 
This is not redress because someone doesn’t like your color or ethnicity, you have to apply to another door for that.  These programs grew out of the theft of services from African-Americans forebears held in captivity and worked as slave labor.  These programs are for their African-American heirs, and not every non-white person from across the planet.
As Webb says, “The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed. But the extrapolation of this logic to all “people of color”—especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.—moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top, still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup.”
In the commentary about Senator Webb’s article, there is an attempt to both raise ire of progressives and immigrants at the notion of ending diversity programs and at the same time use “Myth of White Privilege” as a way to get African-Americans to dismiss the argument before they hear it, because they know it ain’t no myth, but it does put all white folks in the same basket and they don’t all belong there, at least not all the time. 
Webb says, “In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations. These programs have damaged racial harmony. And the more they have grown, the less they have actually helped African-Americans, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action as it was originally conceived.  How so?
“Lyndon Johnson’s initial program for affirmative action was based on the 13th Amendment and on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which authorized the federal government to take actions in order to eliminate “the badges of slavery.” Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable, even to those who came from white cultural groups that had also suffered in socioeconomic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath.
 And despite the headline, Webb does not deny white privilege, he just does not call it that.  Instead, he acknowledges the existence of a ruling “white elite”, observing that “the Old South was a three-tiered society, with blacks and hard-put whites both dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to retain power. At the height of slavery, in 1860, less than 5% of whites in the South owned slaves.”  
He then goes on to note other markers of the stratification of white society such as a 1980-2000 survey of college degrees obtained by white Baptists, 18.4%; Irish Protestants, 21.8% and compared it to the “national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%.”
We would add that the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that “the wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation’s net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%.”  
Webb says, “Policymakers ignored such disparities within America’s white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith. Also lost on these policymakers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus, nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business start-ups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.
“Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.”
There is nothing in the senator’s article that suggests anything but the acknowledgement of the debt due African-Americans and the necessity of continuing programs that remediate it.  Immigrants should not be able to come and make claim to remedies for a wrong — slavery, Jim Crow and all the rest — that they had not endured.  Yes, other discrimination exists, but find other remedies.  The government programs for “minority” contractors should be for African-Americans because their ancestors had their human capital taken and invested in building the roads and ports and growing and harvesting the crops that built this nation.  That’s the work these programs were supposed to compensate for.  The problem is that when they were devised, lawmakers could not bring themselves to  enacting programs that were just for African-Americans.  As a result, they increased the attraction of the United States, while at the same time perpetuated the weakening of a significant portion of its intellectual and human capital and now they complain about immigration. 
Maybe the country will come to the point of looking at the world from a global perspective, knowing that we can only participate in this galloping race to the future, by paradoxically turning inward and strengthening our core human capacity so that we can engage other nations with a citizenry that has fully-realized its human potential.  So let’s take another look at the diversity programs, of course being mindful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

View From Here: The Freedom Party – Waking Giant

“Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m Proud!” When we entered the Siloam Presbyterian Church, whose 161 year-old history includes the congregation taking up a $25 collection for the visiting John Brown on his way to Harper’s Ferry, the beat of James Brown was reverberating from the large meeting room up the stairs and over the Sanctuary. There we were engulfed by the heat of over 250 pulsating souls charged with the electricity of the moment as an exhorter preacher-woman of activism stood in front and reminded the crowd, many with more gray in their hair than not, that the formation of a Black-led Freedom Party was a cause whose time has come. And being there among the standing-room only coming together of people, who like Fannie Lou Hamer, are “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” was to know that whether it was Montgomery, Alabama before the bus boycott or Selma before the great march, this is what the ground floor of a movement looks like. This is how it begins. Ain’t No Stoppin’ us Now!”
Viola Plummer told the assembly that the Freedom Party is about power and respect in the political process and organizing to achieve it. That was what brought this gathering behind the standard-bearer of the Freedom Party, former Black Panther and current City Councilman Charles Barron.
The petitioning process begins July 6, and this seasoned group is particularly well-suited to that task. The technology of the signature getting has not changed. It remains hand-to-hand-combat. And this first wave of activists bring their old-school patience and people-skills combined with, in some cases, decades of experience in navigating the infamously treacherous New York City petitioning review process. It will be hard work and long hours. In all likelihood, they will get their signatures and they will be good.
Nest will be the education of the masses and with conditions being what they are, the audience will be receptive to the message that a vote for Andrew Cuomo from the Black community is clearly a vote for Massa and there is no freedom in it. It demonstrates nothing except a willingness to be taken for granted. The Democratic Party has already anointed Cuomo governor, so that’s done as far as they’re concerned. The needs of the African-American community are simply of no interest to them. They are strange but not unusual in that way. Even June 29th’s New York Times Echoed Charles Barron’s complaint with the Democratic Party ticket, reporting on the amazing whiteness of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration. “The city’s non-Hispanic white population is now 35%.But Mr. Bloomberg presides over an administration in which more than 70% of the senior jobs are held by whites.” This explains why we see Dennis Walcott, Deputy Mayor for Operations, at so many events representing the mayor. He’s the designated guy.
This political system makes decisions based on a white supremacist legacy, a sort of “Post-Traumatic White Supremacist Syndrome” where the centuries of indoctrination in the belief of white superiority, is difficult to shake.
An example of the difference this thinking makes in real-world actions was the Division of Economic and Financial Opportunity created by Mayor David Dinkins, which was bringing fairness to New York City contracting and was on the way to creating businesses and jobs in the African-American community but the Giuliani administration killed it. Now Governor David Paterson is having agencies unbundle their contracts to include minority and women suppliers, increasing that purchasing by tens of millions of dollars. To see that those kinds of initiatives are continued in the next administration, African-Americans have to demonstrate they have the power to take away massive numbers of votes and break the back of any candidate that does not get with the program.
This business of being disorganized while everywhere we look, other groups come together and march sharply up to the front of the line, has to come to an end.
The consciousness-raising, the fund-raising and the vote getting will need to harness the mass communication ability of the Web-savvy, PDA-equipped generation. All of the eighteen-year-olds who are ready to vote speak to each other by text and keep up with current events through their mobile devices. With their ability to communicate so quickly they are a sudden army, waiting to be roused. Waiting to plead their own cause as young African-American people.
What is needed is a coming together around the recognition of the unique history of African-Americans and a willingness to demand that history be addressed in policy changes. When the Freedom Party garners several hundred thousand votes, then we’ll see something new start to happen.

Estate Prompts Investigations of Brooklyn Supreme Court Guardianship Program and the Real Lowdown on the Slave Theater

Questions about the future of the Slave Theater have been raised to a higher level with the current photo exhibit at Five Myles Gallery.  The theater is a part of what’s left of the estate of Judge John L. Phillips after passing through the hands of four court-appointed guardians.
We spoke with Reverend Samuel Boykin, the court-appointed administrator of the Phillips estate and a nephew the eldest of Judge Phillips on the status of the estate.
He is the only member of the family the court has given permission to make financial decisions regarding the estate.   However, Synphonie Moss, a cousin, was able to make personal decisions a regarding the person of Judge Phillips.  But had overruled Moss and Boykin in placing Phillips in the Castle Senior Living at Prospect Park residence, rather than allowing him to stay at home.  Boykin is now suing the residence for wrongful death negligent health care.
As we go to press, Reverenc Boykin told us that he spoke with  the state comptroller’s office on Tuesday, and they said  they are actively considering doing an audit of the Brooklyn Supreme Court Guardianship program.   Boykin has charged that the illegal handling of the estates of elderly people, the misappropriation of funds and in some cases embezzlement and mortgage fraud should be a part of that probe in the handling of the Phillips estate.
He also told us that he has spoken with a representative of the NYS Unified Court System Office of Administration who said they were investigating some of the activities of the court-appointed guardians in the Judge Phillips case.   DG

Boykin: “Judge John L. Phillips had 13 properties listed with the Brooklyn Supreme Court Guardianship program.  Of those 13 properties listed, there was only rent recorded being collected for two months for two properties at 563 & 565 Nostrand Avenue, no other property has paid rent in 13 years. 
OTP:  The people in the Slave Theater now, what is their status? 
Boykin:  No one has paid rent in the entire time they’ve been there and all are there in a state of trespassing.  
OTP:  But they have access.
Boykin:  That’s because they won’t leave voluntarily.  I have an eviction notice that has been going on for 5 months, and I’m waiting on the court’s decision to evict.  We’re having a hard time selling the buildings because people want a building empty.  Not with tenants who have not paid rent in ten years. 
OTP:  But what about the electric?
BOYKIN: Dr. Paul Lewis of the Messengers for Christ World Healing center on the second floor is paying the utilities.  It’s an international church.  His church has been there for eight years and he is not paying any rent.  Mr. Hardy (downstairs) uses the church’s utilities and is paying zero bills.   People assume he is the spokesman for the family because he happens to be there. 
OTP:  And the status of the Slave Theater?
Boykin:  I’ve terminated my agreement with Massey and Knakel.  I put a “For Sale” sign on both theaters, “For Sale by Owner”.  I’ve received over a hundred calls.  We’re accepting bids and those that are authentic and qualified I will turn over to the attorneys.
What’s next for the Slave and the Black Lady Theater is that they must  be sold because we owe over $2 million dollars in back taxes and liens.  No property taxes on any of the properties have been paid in ten years. 
OTP: Whose responsibility is it to have paid those taxes?
Boykin:  These past guardians sold all the property and paid no taxes and filed no taxes. 
OTP: Where did that money go?
Boykin: A lot of that money we can’t find.  It’s been a continual embezzlement against the estate of Judge John L. Phillips non-stop by court-appointed guardians, by people who were close to Judge Phillips and say they loved him, but remain in the buildings without paying rent or taxes and others. 
OTP:  When you say that past guardians have been guilty of breaking the law, specifically, which laws are you talking about? 
Boykin:  Failure to file taxes.  Estate taxes, state and city taxes.  Selling property way undervalue.  Waiving of the guardianship law.  Failure to advertise property they were selling.  Paying off illegal mortgages.  Mortgage fraud was committed against 68 Cumberland Street for  $391,500.  Instead of the court reporting these people to the District Attorney’s Office and sending them to prison, they allowed Imani Taylor to pay off the loan from Judge Phillips’ account.  I couldn’t get anyone to respond until recently.  I sent information to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the Supreme Court Appellate Division,  State Attorney General, NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct.  Judge Phillips’ case is not isolated.   Anyone in the guardianship program is at the mercy of court-appointed attorneys and others who collaborate in mismanaging the estates.
OTP:  And the longer it takes, the more money everybody makes.
Boykin:  That’s correct.

View From Here: Terror in the Gulf

The oil gushing from a well a mile underwater is the result of  an amazing feat of engineering that private industry has achieved and only they have the engineering technology, robotic submersibles working at the drill head and controlled from a room in Houston, Texas for one example, to even begin to stop it.   The Obama Administration has very smart people giving advice and support as they work their way through the unique and “unprepared for” engineering predicament their expertise and technological hubris has led to.
This piercing of the earth and continuing another 35,000ft. through rock to tap a toxic substance that Mother Nature surely thought she had safely tucked away, has allowed us to see oil in its purest form-as a destroyer of life.  It is akin to an underwater radioactive bomb, destroying life throughout the water column and a way of life all along the coastline. 
We see independent reports with estimates ranging between 25,000-90,000 barrels of oil a day being released and spewing into the Gulf.  Much of it is being dispersed into droplets too small to see, too small to rise to the top but able to be caught in ocean currents fouling life cycles from plankton to people and from the wetlands of Louisiana on to Florida and possibly around and up the East Coast.
President Obama has to bring a full light on the situation in the form of an official revision upward of the estimate of the gusher and a radical recalibration in the level of his response such that the perception of government is changed.   If current efforts, what the industry calls a “top kill” fail to stop the discharge, Obama can keep his cool but he’ll have to do it at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting where they treat the Gulf Coast as a third front for all appropriate resources.  Have Drones monitor the oil above and below the surface and put the images on YouTube. Break protocol on nuclear subs and announce there’s one in the area full of scientists.  Call in the Marines.  Have troop trucks on the highways headed for the coast.  Show them marching down to the shoreline with shovels, oil-absorbent material and buckets of Dawn.  Let the debate be if the administration went “over the top” in its response to protecting the coastline and the nation’s security.  Less than that and the possibility exists that Obama will spend the rest of his presidency in explanations instead of cheers.

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Democratic Judicial Screening Panel and Procedures Assailed

Demonstration Planned for 1pm Wednesday, May 19th at 16 Court Street in front of the Kings County organization’s office

“It’s blackmail, plain and simple,” is how Community organizer Reverend Taharka Robinson describes the procedures of the Judicial Screening Committee for the Kings County Democratic Party.

Rev. Taharka Robinson, Community Activist

Rev. Robinson is speaking of the “I regret to inform you.” letters of rejection that the committee sends to candidates who did not clear their screening process.  
 The letter states that there is a right to appeal, however, “Assuming you do not choose to appeal, you may avoid a negative publication if you withdraw your candidacy unequivocally and with prejudice.”
The threat is that “the Committee will, Pursuant to the Judicial Selection Procedures, publish its findings to the Democratic Party and the news media.  Applicants who have been  found “Not Qualified at this time” who have withdrawn their candidacies “with prejudice” will not be cited in the Committee’s report.”
Meaning that if a candidacy is not withdrawn, the candidates reputation will have a “not qualified” smudge on it and the public will not know about a candidate who may have been perfectly well qualified, but who’s record cannot be compared to the  Committee’s selection.
Robinson also questions who is serving on the panel determining the candidates for judgeships in Kings County.
“Stephen Bamundo is not qualified to sit on the panel,” he asserts, speaking of a lawyer listed on the letterhead. “How can an individual who has been the subject of lawsuits and complaint be qualified to sit on the panel that determines who is fit to serve as  judge in the Second Judicial Department,” which includes the counties of Kings, Richmond and parts of Queens.  Robinson is referring to the $600,000 in malpractice suits against Bamundo, mostly involving failure to file papers on time, that were reported in the Daily News July 6, 2003.  (Bamundo’s lawyer, Arthur Ciampi said in the same article “My guess is if you did a story on any malpractice firm, you’d find these types of cases.”)
Robinson asks “How can someone who is himself the subject of several client complaints, be qualified to sit in judgment of judicial candidates?  They do this to keep us from being on the playing field and to maintain control of the bench.”  More about that in future issues.

Village Voice Exposé! The NYPD Tapes: “Inside Bed-Stuy’s 81st Precinct”

“Two years ago, a police officer in a Brooklyn precinct became gravely concerned about how the public was being served. To document his concerns, he began carrying around a digital sound recorder, secretly recording his colleagues and superiors.
He recorded precinct roll calls. He recorded his precinct commander and other supervisors. He recorded street encounters. He recorded small talk and stationhouse banter. In all, he surreptitiously collected hundreds of hours of cops talking about their jobs.
Made without the knowledge or approval of the NYPD, the tapes-made between June 1, 2008, and October 31, 2009, in the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and obtained exclusively by the Voice-provide an unprecedented portrait of what it’s like to work as a cop in this city.”
From the Village Voice, May 4, 2010

And so begins Graham Rayman’s “just the facts, ma’am” reporting of the chilling truth of  policing procedures in Bedford-Stuyvesant’s 81st Precinct and it would seem to require a questioning of all precinct commanders by politicians, community boards and precinct councils in their area on exactly what’s going on?  
If the capture of the Time Square Bomber withing 54 hours was police work at its finest, then what goes on at the 81 is on the other end of the spectrum.  The tapes reveal a deliberate manipulation of statistics in opposing directions that would make Goldman Sachs blush, if not liable.  The edicts coming down from the chain of command required officers to show they are working by producing stop-and-frisks and summonses.  The more  numbers of this busywork,the better.  However, actual crimes such as robbery are either downgraded or not recorded because of police harassment of complaintants, both designed to give the impression that crime is going down. 
These secret recordings tell of “bosses” “spend”-ing “more time in the roll calls haranguing the officers for ‘activity’-or ‘paying the rent,’ as it was known-than anything else. In other words, writing summonses, doing stop-and-frisks (known as ’250s’), doing community visits and making arrests.”
And again “On June 12, 2008, Lieutenant B. relayed the summons target: ‘The XO [second-in-command] was in the other day. He actually laid down a number. He wants at least three seat belts, one cell phone, and 11 others. All right, so if I was on patrol, I would be sure to get three seat belts, one cell phone and 11 others.’”
It may have been one such stop that led to attorney’s Michael and Evelyn Warren being brutalized by police after coming to the assistance of a stopped and harassed motorist.
The tapes reveal Roll Call instructions to beat officers to make their numbers and they are told they are at the bottom catching these orders from on high, the “s-” , that rolls downhill.  But in truth, these officers are many rungs from the bottom and this is a very large load.  After the officer is forced to act, because “low numbers meant criticism and demotion; high numbers meant praise and promotion”, the load lands on the citizen stopped in the street, affecting their mental and financial health.  It continues on to hit significant others who have to work on the healing, it smacks into sons and daughters, little brothers and sisters, all being taught the way things really are.  But it does not stop there, because this system of policing, with people used as things to “pay the rent”, is a holdover from slavery, interacting with and feeding the Prison Industrial Complex that Brooklyn resident John Flateau exposed in his book of the same name.  But it does not stop there.  It continues on and is used by upstate Republicans to gerrymander districts using prison populations as residents, increasing their power while robbing the prisoner home districts.
The Voice advises: If you want to avoid getting a ticket, stay away from police officers during the last few days of the month when the pressure for numbers is the highest.  From the tapes, it’s not hard to imagine an officer desperately driving to the precinct, looking for someone smoking pot on a stoop or double-parking to fill some gap in their productivity.
What happens after Schoolcraft meets with investigators is astonishing.  After calling in sick, “A dozen police supervisors came to his house and demanded that he return to work. He declined on health grounds. Eventually, Deputy Chief Michael Marino, the commander of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, which covers 10 precincts, ordered that Schoolcraft be dragged from his apartment in handcuffs and forcibly placed in a Queens mental ward for six days.”
This series will be a must-read.  If you can’t find the print edition of the Village Voice, read the whole story on the Web at www.villagevoice.com.  Also, thanks to Errol Louis for pulling our coat to this story on his morning show on WWRL 1600AM  6am-9am.   David Mark Greaves

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Radio Transmission Antennas Linked to Deadly Health Problems

Cell phones, WiFi, wireless relay towers, all of which were unknown 20 years ago, are now a part of our everyday lives, bathing us in microwave radiation that studies have associated with a variety of physical and emotional disorders that used to be called radio wave sickness when it was first seen in military radar operators.
In a report released yesterday, The BRAGT Antenna Ranking of Schools documents the density and proximity of antennas near schools in the 50 State capitals and in Washington, D.C.  The more antennas that are near schools the greater the potential exposure of students and teachers to radio frequency radiation from external antennas.
Author and researcher, Professor Magda Havas began a telephone press conference about the report with a short review of the science of the relationship of cell phones to brain tumors and cancer of the salivary glands, the danger to sperm for men using a cell 2-4 hours a day, and noting that studiies have shown that women who use cell phones while pregnant run the risk of giving birth to babies with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
According to Dr. Havas, more and more studies are beginning to document adverse biological and health effects for people who live near cell phone and broadcast antennas.  Some show an increased risk of cancers for those living within 350 to 400 meters of cell phone antennas at exposure levels well below federal guidelines in the US and Canada.  Other studies show an increase in symptoms that have been classified as “electrohypersensitivity”.  These symptoms  include difficulty sleeping, fatigue, pain, poor short-term memory, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, irritability and depression, skin problems, dizziness, nausea and ringing in the ears.  Therefore says Havas, exposure to microwave radiation may interfere with learning and may not be conducive to a  good learning environment and that younger students are more vulnerable than adults to this type of radiation.
For these reasons, the report recommends that exposure of students to microwave radiation be minimized.  This can be done by placing cell phone antennas at least 1,500 feet away (approximately 460m) from schools and by using wired rather than wireless (WiFi) connection for Internet access within schools.

Responding to a question from OTP, Dr. Havas said that the effects of the radiation can be lessened by placing protective see-through films over windows and shielding roof areas, particularly for top floors directly under the rooftop antennas.  She also said that cable or fiber-optic lines are preferred over wireless technology for home and school.  And that anyone living near one of the new WiMax towers now being placed, should move.  “They will become very ill, very quickly,” says Prof. Havas.
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To find information about the microwave towers near your home, Click Here.

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